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Would You Like Your Own Coaching Business?

3 June 2019

I’m always struck how people sign up for a skills based course, in order to begin a new career, and yet the course offers them no transition skills.

Psychotherapy suffers from this, in my experience. Excellent teaching builds confidence in the client space and yet leaves a big gap in the business space.

Coaching is often no different.

People pay for the skill and yet aren’t taught how to bring that skill to market.

Sometimes a 12 month course features a quick half day on business skills…but more often there’s next to nothing.

If we want a business then we need to know about:

1. Cashflow

2. Marketing

3. Selling

We need to have a cashflow forecast in order to test our assumptions. Are we being too optimistic in terms of sales success? If we need 10 customers, how long is it going to take to find them and win them? How many people are we going to have to meet, in order to secure 10 sales? (I’d suggest a ratio of 1:10 at least).

We need to know our brand values, what differentiates us and how we live those values. What does our ideal customer look like? How will we meet them? Who knows we are in the market, and how are we getting our message out?

These form the elements of our marketing plan. Two sides of A4 is all we need; bullet points and key words will keep us on track. We don’t need a 20 page brand document on day one. (I don’t have one in year 15).

As for selling, there are no shortcuts. Networking is the key activity here and the more people we meet in our target market, the more sales we will get. Lots of people are nervous about selling and that’s understandable. However, we all have to make a choice:

Do we put in the miles?

Or do we hope Facebook ads will bring us business?

(They can work, if you have a sizeable budget, but I wouldn’t gamble on them on day one).

Network. Network. Network. Meet people, listen to them, make friends, drink tea and eat cake. That’s my sales process and if we put the effort in we can get the rewards out.

We can all have our own coaching business if we really want to. If we have the love and motivation for it then we will succeed. If we don’t, we won’t.

And that’s the final ingredient…love. It’s too easy to talk about passion, but I think that’s a bit naff to be honest. We feel love deep down. If it’s there it will sustain us. Passion can just be a synonym for excitement and it can burn out quickly. Love will last!

And if you’re interested then here are two practical options for you…

1. I run ILM Level 5 coaching certificate courses. Online and 1-to-1 and these can come with our ‘Into Business’ package of support and guidance. Instead of Couch to 5k, think of it as Couch to Coach. Great fun!

2. My second book…Leave The Bastards Behind…is on Amazon and guides you through how to set up a business. (Other books are available of course and why not buy 3 and choose what you like from each of them?)

If you’d like your own coaching business, what will you do this week to make it a reality? What’s the first small step you can take?

Happy coaching!

Next week: Drawing A Line Under It